the ground is the sky is the mountain is the mouth

i’ve been slowly making an abstract surreal tarot deck. the process is intuitive. i haphazardly cut scrap watercolour paintings into little bits and puzzle the shapes together on small cards until compositions reveal themselves.

wands are birds. discs are moons. cups are fish. swords are hooks. but even these types of symbols are always up for interpretation.

what you sea is different from what eye sea

the mirror is the moon is the feather is the feeling

falling still

img_0822

Great emptiness as

simple as that went

So straight before-

 

had not been able

then not being idle

went absent away

 

Now faith is not what we

hereafter have we have a

world resting on nothing

 

Rest was never more than

abstract since it is empty

reality we cannot escape

 

from “Souls of the Labadie Tract” by Susan Howe

skyspat out a little flame

birdspiral spit
detail from birdspiral painting

warming mind

swaying girth
spanning time
brief pockets of sun
(the streaming kind)

lantern domes make muffled sounds
(momentarily illuminating mine)

flickering embers in campfire’s bowl
little lapping, licking flames
jamming survival in newborn coal
this fire is never tame

 
-jessica gabriel (2008)